Sugar Detox Day 2 -- What Kind of A-holes Leave Free Danish All Over the Office?

This is what's currently lurking in our kitchen right now, all sugary and free and waiting to be eaten in a compulsive and secretive manner.

It doesn't even look that good in the picture, but trust me, you would chew on some of this stuff if you saw it in person. And if you're anything like me, you'd go back a few times and eat more, and then you'd skip lunch because you'd eaten a bunch of pastries, and then by the end of the day you'd feel naseous and like nobody ever loved you, not even your mother.

So I went back to "Sugar Shock" and reread the part about how cutting out sugar will make my hair and skin shiny and beautiful. (Oh yeah, and my insides I guess will work better too.)

I'm being flip about this sugar thing, but the only way I've ever been able to change any habit (drinking, overspending, drugs) is to let it get so freaking painful that I can't stand to proceed. And while it may seem a little silly to talk about "bottoming out" on sugar, I feel genuinely powerless over it, despite the negative consequences that follow a binge. And I scoff sometimes at people who are so over 12-stepped that they start counting days off television and caffeine, but really anything can be painful when you lose control over it.

The pain comes from watching yourself make the same mistakes over and over again, in spite of knowing better. In compulsively choosing self-destructive behaviors over the ones that nurture and heal you. In realizing you're more comfortable in familiar misery than new, terrifying happiness.

So by choosing not to eat the danish, I am making a choice that's bigger than to eat or not to eat. I'm deciding to do things that will make me feel good, instead of figuratively stabbing myself in the heart over and over again.